Developer Deep Dive—ESO's Class Identity Refresh

Skorro · December 2

One more question from me, so will the next 2 years be solely focused on this? (Seasons of the classes) How will this fit into zone, pvp, trial, dungeon,etc dev?

thejadefalcon · December 2

Syldras wrote: »

"Arcanists wield a form of runic magic so complex it requires a pact with Hermaeus Mora."

This clearly contradicts established lore.

Ahaha, I didn't even notice this.

The arcanist is just such a mess of a class lore-wise and their repeated attempts to unmess it and make it make any sense have been just frustrating to watch.

LukosCreyden · December 2

A few things:
1. It is established lore that Arcanists do not require a pact, they just get their power from Hermaeus Mora's realm.
2. Necromancer should be a much higher priority.
3. If the animation updates are going to be like Templar's jabs or DW's flurry, we do not want them.
4. A lot of animations make our weapons inexplicably disappear. Will this be addressed?
5. Please try to avoid nerfs. Everyone is tired of them.
6. Many people enjoy subclassing. It'd be good to not make the system completely obsolete.

The_Meathead · December 2

LukosCreyden wrote: »

3. If the animation updates are going to be like Templar's jabs or DW's flurry, we do not want them.

DeathStalker · December 2

I hope that those of us with limitations and needing accessibility options to play are not forgotten in this process. I myself can only play with heavy attack builds due to server limitations with my hands(nerve damage and severe arthritis). Please don't forget people like me.

tomofhyrule · December 2

Fun aside though: can we get the lore team to write the new tooltips like we had for Arc?
“Your attacks wound the mind with heretical knowledge, increasing damage dealt by Status Effects by X% and Status Effect Chance by X%” just sounds more immersive than “Increases the damage of your Flame and Poison attacks by X%”

Aliyavana · December 2

thejadefalcon wrote: »

Syldras wrote: »

"Arcanists wield a form of runic magic so complex it requires a pact with Hermaeus Mora."

This clearly contradicts established lore.

Ahaha, I didn't even notice this.

The arcanist is just such a mess of a class lore-wise and their repeated attempts to unmess it and make it make any sense have been just frustrating to watch.

We never got a lore explanation on how being subclassed into arcanist skills gets you a arcanist book either.

alternatelder · December 2

Just remove subclassing. We still can't even finish the quest. It broke class identity, it broke the game. This is all you need to do. Now you're going the Destiny 2 route (iykyk about artifact weapon buffs) by basically forcing people to play a certain class per patch if you're going to dedicate a patch to once class rework at a time.

licenturion · December 2

Great insightful post and I look forward to more details in the future.

I know some people think they should release the update in 1 full swoop. But then we probably have to wait for 2 years before everything is fully done, and they can't fix and include player feedback in the rework process if we only get the final version.

Everyone is complaining for months that everybody plays the same meta. You should see this as an opportunity to test out new classes and new metas. I won't be stale for long this way

And the extra Vengeance option will 'fix' the most problems probably anyway for PvP, and is probably the reason why they first announced that last week.

Mathius_Mordred · December 2

alternatelder wrote: »

Just remove subclassing. We still can't even finish the quest. It broke class identity, it broke the game. This is all you need to do. Now you're going the Destiny 2 route (iykyk about artifact weapon buffs) by basically forcing people to play a certain class per patch if you're going to dedicate a patch to once class rework at a time.

There's no way, that Genie is out of the bottle and has headed to the hills long ago. Just buff pure classes, simple.

Nemesis7884 · December 2

ESO DEVS:

YOU DONT HAVE LONG TERM ANYMORE

you know how many times we have heard in the last 10 years about long term visions and long term plans and bla this and bla that...

You have to realize - you dont have any long term anymore - this mmo cant be in the planning stage anymore you need to get to the delivery stage and fast...

Erickson9610 · December 2

I am concerned that more Class passives will be reworked to explicitly require the use of Class abilities. For the Werewolf playstyle, the passives of your Class lines are the primary reason you select that Class, in addition to which Class Sets you get to use (Pyrebrand and Corpseburster are both usable in Werewolf form because they don't require you to use Class abilities, for instance) and then by which Class Mastery your Class has (but Werewolf has no Scribing Grimoires yet so that can be ignored for now).

Skill lines like Aedric Spear and Storm Calling are great for Werewolf because they have several passives which work in Werewolf form, as there is no strict ability requirement for them. Skill lines like Animal Companions and Earthen Heart are completely useless for Werewolf because none of those passives can be activated while already transformed, as they either require abilities from that line to be slotted or used. Please give us more skill lines like the former, and fewer of the latter.

MSattrtand · December 2

Can we get more frequent balance patches, pretty-please? Looking at this Deep Dive, I see that you need to work on balancing a lot. Like A LOT. And it's extremely depressing to wait for the new patch just to see something like "%ability_name%: increased damage by 2%", cause this change could be done in one incremental patch, why were we waiting for it for several months?

Just introduce something like "Balance Incrementals" that would release monthly, and tweak the numbers there. This will allow you to address glaring issues much faster with at least some band-aid solution. Even if you mess it up with some numbers, we'll have to wait just a month for a new patch that would fix it, not 3/4/5/6 months.

method__01 · December 2

right,when you trashed all classes-despite the many many posts saying it was the wrong move - with your experiments ,now you are "refine" them.....and we have to endure another experiment year?

this shouldn't go live in the first place .now you got all pop -and pvp too playing with same 3 skills ,leaving the rest of us on the side....

one step forward,2 steps backward

edit: typo

Ratzkifal · December 2

Good post, but I gotta say it: Why did it take you this long to come to this realization?
I won't say "most", but many of us saw this coming while subclassing was still on the PTS and we pointed out that this feature needed more time to cook. This "long-term vision" you speak of should have already been established when you made that first step to make subclassing a thing in the first place. We told you "delay this feature until it's ready" but you dismissed us and told us you were "comfortable with the power increase". And now here we are, with talks about "necessary nerfs". Not so comfortable with it now, are you?
What I really want to hear from you, ZOS, is that this type of hindsight development you are doing is a thing of the past and from now on balance changes are carefully considered before they are pushed through to live and the player feedback, especially negative feedback, is actually being considered and not dismissed as "doom and gloom".

Don't get me wrong, what you are doing now sounds like you are on the right track and I am happy with this style of communication for now, but in the end it's the results that count.

I won't say I'm optimistic about this yet, but you have my attention and I'm wishing you (and all of us) success, because this game really is special and it's a shame to see it continuing to spiral.

PrinceShroob · December 2

I strongly caution you to not do this rebalance piecemeal--sit on it if you have to, but get every class at once. Much complaining about balance changes is due to people thinking "their" class is being treated differently--not getting buffed while another class was or getting nerfed when another class was not. And further, spreading this out runs the risk that the effort will simply be abandoned before it's complete.

AzuraFan · December 2

I'm worried about the warden. I'm not sure if the graphic is an indication of what's coming, but it says wardens use the power of the seasons. What about animal companions? Is that going away?

VixxVexx · December 2

According to the article you've already made the changes (the dragonknight example).
Sounds like player feedback will be completely ignored, as is tradition.

metheglyn · December 2

This was an interesting read and I'm curious to see how it will all play out in game. As someone who does not care for subclassing, I like the focus on class identity and pure class builds.

I appreciate the increased communication and information about the ongoing process!

Syldras · December 2

"Sorcerers call upon Daedric pacts and dark magic as the source of their power."

What's with the pacts all the time? Arcanists have a pact with old Hermy Mora, Sorcerers have pacts with everyone else? Conjuring always meant forcing a daedric being into your service. We even had some funny lore books about that...
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:I_was_Summoned_by_a_Mortal
No pacts needed.

Also I'm quite sure there are players who want to play a sorcerer (or have been doing so for years) who don't want an "evil" focus being forced onto their character. I don't mind, but I see some people would not like that, especially if it becomes overly obvious in terms of design and effects.

metheglyn · December 2

Syldras wrote: »

"Sorcerers call upon Daedric pacts and dark magic as the source of their power."

What's with the pacts all the time? Arcanists have a pact with old Hermy Mora, Sorcerers have pacts with everyone else? Conjuring always meant forcing a daedric being into your service. We even had some funny lore books about that...
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:I_was_Summoned_by_a_Mortal
No pacts needed.

Also I'm quite sure there are players who want to play a sorcerer (or have been doing so for years) who don't want an "evil" focus being forced onto their character. I don't mind, but I see some people would not like that, especially if it becomes overly obvious in terms of design and effects.

I was surprised to read that sorcerer description, since I play my sorcerer without using the daedra pets. I guess she's not a real sorcerer! But it does say it's all subject to change and further refinement, so maybe that's not the final description.

twisttop138 · December 2

Interesting post. They really back themselves into a corner with the subclassing roll out. I think many in the community don't have faith that can pull something like this off without huge issues and constant complaints of not listening to players on the pts.

Reading through that, my fear is that this will be used as an excuse for not getting new content. Spanning multiple updates, and mentions they will be rolled out next to ongoing support for the game gives me hope but it would be nice if Zos to let us know that this will not be taking the place of content in 2026.

ZOS_Kevin · December 2

twisttop138 wrote: »

Interesting post. They really back themselves into a corner with the subclassing roll out. I think many in the community don't have faith that can pull something like this off without huge issues and constant complaints of not listening to players on the pts.

Reading through that, my fear is that this will be used as an excuse for not getting new content. Spanning multiple updates, and mentions they will be rolled out next to ongoing support for the game gives me hope but it would be nice if Zos to let us know that this will not be taking the place of content in 2026.

This will not replace content. There are other teams working on content. So the update noted here is in addition to 2026 content.

allochthons · December 2

Thank you for seeing, acknowledging, and working on this issue. It took too long to acknowledge, but it's a step in the right direction.

Also, please remember to give us earlier notifications for the Dev live-streams.

Syldras · December 2

metheglyn wrote: »

I was surprised to read that sorcerer description, since I play my sorcerer without using the daedra pets. I guess she's not a real sorcerer!

There's too much good/evil clichée stuff going on there for me, with the "typical"/clearly sorcery-related classes sorcerer - arcanist - necromancer - being labeled as "evil" (and of course on the "good" side we have the holistic hippie warden and the good aedra-worshipping temple knight). And yes, I know that these are typical rpg tropes, but things had usually been less clear in TES...

I know the flavor texts of the abilities always had some bits about abilities being related to Aedra and Daedra, and I never liked it that they basically pre-defined our character by that so much. Then again, when did you ever look at these texts anyway? So it could just be ignored.

But since they also write about "modernising" the visual effects now, I'm sceptical whether it will remain that easy to ignore...

Sarannah · December 2

-Thinking about this some more, maybe it may be a good idea to rework one damage ability for each class right away(first), to be more like arcanist's fatecarver. And do everything else for 'class refreshing' afterwards in the two years planned for this. This would make all classes relevant right away, and will spread the meta out right away. While also giving you, the devs, more time to completely refresh the classes.

DragonRacer · December 2

Please spare my Arcanist tank any major nerfs. That's all I hope for whenever "change" is brought up. He's basically my last bit of fun and joy in this game.

tomofhyrule · December 2

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

twisttop138 wrote: »

Interesting post. They really back themselves into a corner with the subclassing roll out. I think many in the community don't have faith that can pull something like this off without huge issues and constant complaints of not listening to players on the pts.

Reading through that, my fear is that this will be used as an excuse for not getting new content. Spanning multiple updates, and mentions they will be rolled out next to ongoing support for the game gives me hope but it would be nice if Zos to let us know that this will not be taking the place of content in 2026.

This will not replace content. There are other teams working on content. So the update noted here is in addition to 2026 content.

When you say “it won’t replace content” though, what does that entail?

I could definitely see new zones or quests not interfering with this, but content like new Classes does really feel like it’d take a backseat to these updates.

I do hope we don’t have to sit looking at 7 classes on the Character Creation screen for another five years when everything else in the game runs in multiples of 4 or 5.

twisttop138 · December 2

Can we talk for a second about "holistic approach". I'm unsure what's meant by that, I'm a little older, maybe I'm not getting the lingo, but what I read is this. "We're getting nowhere using science, so we're going for Karen at the herb store. She says these crystals work wonders.

alpha_synuclein · December 2

I have only one question.
Why wasn't this done BEFORE subclassing was introduced?